Independent adaptation to riverine habitats allowed survival of ancient cetacean lineages

被引:160
作者
Cassens, I
Vicario, S
Waddell, VG
Balchowsky, H
Van Belle, D
Ding, W
Fan, C
Mohan, RSL
Simoes-Lopes, PC
Bastida, R
Meyer, A
Stanhope, MJ
Milinkovitch, MC [1 ]
机构
[1] Free Univ Brussels, Inst Mol Biol & Med, Unit Evolutionary Genet, B-6041 Gosselies, Belgium
[2] Free Univ Brussels, Inst Mol Biol & Med, Unit Bioinformat, B-6041 Gosselies, Belgium
[3] Queens Univ Belfast, Belfast BT9 7BL, Antrim, North Ireland
[4] Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Hydrobiol, Wuhan 430072, Peoples R China
[5] Conservat Nat Trust, Calicut 673005, Kerala, India
[6] Univ Fed Santa Catarina, CCB, Dept Ecol & Zool, Aquat Mammals Lab, BR-88040970 Florianopolis, SC, Brazil
[7] Natl Univ Mar del Plata, Marine Mammals Lab, RA-7600 Mar Del Plata, Argentina
[8] Univ Konstanz, Fak Biol, D-78457 Constance, Germany
[9] SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceut, Collegeville, PA 19426 USA
关键词
D O I
10.1073/pnas.97.21.11343
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
The four species of "river dolphins" are associated with six separate great river systems on three subcontinents and have been grouped for more than a century into a single taxon based on their similar appearance. However, several morphologists recently questioned the monophyly of that group. By using phylogenetic analyses of nucleotide sequences from three mitochondrial and two nuclear genes, we demonstrate with statistical significance that extant river dolphins are not monophyletic and suggest that they are relict species whose adaptation to riverine habitats incidentally insured their survival against major environmental changes in the marine ecosystem or the emergence of Delphinidae.
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页码:11343 / 11347
页数:5
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